but the precaution was unnecessary.
"One moment, Mr Drishna," interposed Carrados, in his smoothest tones.
"It is a pity, after you have come so far, to leave without hearing of
my investigations in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue."
Drishna sat down again.
"As you like," he muttered. "It does not interest me."
"I wanted to obtain a lamp of a certain pattern," continued Carrados.
"It seemed to me that the simplest explanation would be to say that I
wanted it for a motor car. Naturally I went to Long Acre. At the first
shop I said: 'Wasn't it here that a friend of mine, an Indian gentleman,
recently had a lamp made with a green glass that was nearly five inches
across?' No, it was not there but they could make me one. At the next
shop the same; at the third, and fourth, and so on. Finally my
persistence was rewarded. I found the place where the lamp had been
made, and at the cost of ordering another I obtained all the details I
wanted. It was news to them, the shopman informed me, that in some parts
of India green was the danger colour and therefore tail lamps had to
show a green light. The incident made some impression on him and he
would be able to identify their customer--who paid in advance and gave
no address--among a thousand of his countrymen. Do I succeed in
interesting you, Mr Drishna?"
"Do you?" replied Drishna, with a languid yawn. "Do I look interested?"
"You must make allowance for my unfortunate blindness," apologized
Carrados, with grim irony.
"Blindness!" exclaimed Drishna, dropping his affectation of unconcern as
though electrified by the word, "do you mean--really blind--that you do
not see me?"
"Alas, no," admitted Carrados.
The Indian withdrew his right hand from his coat pocket and with a
tragic gesture flung a heavy revolver down on the table between them.
"I have had you covered all the time, Mr Carrados, and if I had wished
to go and you or your friend had raised a hand to stop me, it would have
been at the peril of your lives," he said, in a voice of melancholy
triumph. "But what is the use of defying fate, and who successfully
evades his destiny? A month ago I went to see one of our people who
reads the future and sought to know the course of certain events. 'You
need fear no human eye,' was the message given to me. Then she added:
'But when the sightless sees the unseen, make your peace with Yama.' And
I thought she spoke of the Great Hereafter!"
"This amounts to an admission of your guilt," exclaimed Mr Carlyle
practically.
"I bow to the decree of fate," replied Drishna. "And it is fitting to
the universal irony of existence that a blind man should be the
instrument. I don't imagine, Mr Carlyle," he added maliciously, "that
you, with your eyes, would ever have brought that result about."
"You are a very cold-blooded young scoundrel, sir!" retorted Mr Carlyle.
"Good heavens! do you realize that you are responsible for the death of
scores of innocent men and women?"
"Do _you_ realise, Mr Carlyle, that you and your Government and your
soldiers are responsible for the death of thousands of innocent men and
women in my country every day? If England was occupied by the Germans
who quartered an army and an administration with their wives and their
families and all their expensive paraphernalia on the unfortunate
country until the whole nation was reduced to the verge of famine, and
the appointment of every new official meant the callous death sentence
on a thousand men and women to pay his salary, then if you went to
Berlin and wrecked a train you would be hailed a patriot. What Boadicea
did and--and Samson, so have I. If they were heroes, so am I."
"Well, upon my word!" cried the highly scandalized Carlyle, "what next!
Boadicea was a--er--semi-legendary person, whom we may possibly admire
at a distance. Personally, I do not profess to express an opinion. But
Samson, I would remind you, is a Biblical character. Samson was mocked
as an enemy. You, I do not doubt, have been entertained as a friend."
"And haven't I been mocked and despised and sneered at every day of my
life here by your supercilious, superior, empty-headed men?" flashed
back Drishna, his eyes leaping into malignity and his voice trembling
with sudden passion. "Oh! how I hated them as I passed them in the
street and recognized by a thousand petty insults their lordly English
contempt for me as an inferior being--a nigger. How I longed with
Caligula that a nation had a single neck that I might destroy it at one
blow. I loathe you in your complacent hypocrisy, Mr Carlyle, despise and
utterly abominate you from an eminence of superiority that you can never
even understand."
"I think we are getting rather away from the point, Mr Drishna,"
interposed Carrados, with the impartiality of a judge. "Unless I am
misinformed, you are not so ungallant as to include everyone you have
met here in your execration?"
"Ah, no," admitted Drishna, descending into a quite ingenuous frankness.
"Much as I hate your men I love your women. How is it possible that a
nation should be so divided--its men so dull-witted and offensive, its
women so quick, sympathetic and capable of appreciating?"
"But a little expensive, too, at times?" suggested Carrados.
Drishna sighed heavily.
"Yes; it is incredible. It is the generosity of their large nature. My
allowance, though what most of you would call noble, has proved quite
inadequate. I was compelled to borrow money and the interest became
overwhelming. Bankruptcy was impracticable because I should have then
been recalled by my people, and much as I detest England a certain
reason made the thought of leaving it unbearable."
"Connected with the Arcady Theatre?"
"You know? Well, do not let us introduce the lady's name. In order to
restore myself I speculated on the Stock Exchange. My credit was good
through my father's position and the standing of the firm to which I am
attached. I heard on reliable authority, and very early, that the
Central and Suburban, and the Deferred especially, was safe to fall
heavily, through a motor bus amalgamation that was then a secret. I
opened a bear account and sold largely. The shares fell, but only
fractionally, and I waited. Then, unfortunately, they began to go up.
Adverse forces were at work and rumours were put about. I could not
stand the settlement, and in order to carry over an account I was
literally compelled to deal temporarily with some securities that were
not technically my own property."
"Embezzlement, sir," commented Mr Carlyle icily. "But what is
embezzlement on the top of wholesale murder!"
"That is what it is called. In my case, however, it was only to be
temporary. Unfortunately, the rise continued. Then, at the height of my
despair, I chanced to be returning to Swanstead rather earlier than
usual one evening, and the train was stopped at a certain signal to let
another pass. There was conversation in the carriage and I learned
certain details. One said that there would be an accident some day, and
so forth. In a flash--as by an inspiration--I saw how the circumstance
might be turned to account. A bad accident and the shares would
certainly fall and my position would be retrieved. I think Mr Carrados
has somehow learned the rest."
"Max," said Mr Carlyle, with emotion, "is there any reason why you
should not send your man for a police officer and have this monster
arrested on his own confession without further delay?"
"Pray do so, Mr Carrados," acquiesced Drishna. "I shall certainly be
hanged, but the speech I shall prepare will ring from one end of India
to the other; my memory will be venerated as that of a martyr; and the
emancipation of my motherland will be hastened by my sacrifice."
"In other words," commented Carrados, "there will be disturbances at
half-a-dozen disaffected places, a few unfortunate police will be
clubbed to death, and possibly worse things may happen. That does not
suit us, Mr Drishna."
"And how do you propose to prevent it?" asked Drishna, with cool
assurance.
"It is very unpleasant being hanged on a dark winter morning; very cold,
very friendless, very inhuman. The long trial, the solitude and the
confinement, the thoughts of the long sleepless night before, the
hangman and the pinioning and the noosing of the rope, are apt to prey
on the imagination. Only a very stupid man can take hanging easily."
"What do you want me to do instead, Mr Carrados?" asked Drishna
shrewdly.
Carrados's hand closed on the weapon that still lay on the table between
them. Without a word he pushed it across.
"I see," commented Drishna, with a short laugh and a gleaming eye.
"Shoot myself and hush it up to suit your purpose. Withhold my message
to save the exposures of a trial, and keep the flame from the torch of
insurrectionary freedom."
"Also," interposed Carrados mildly, "to save your worthy people a good
deal of shame, and to save the lady who is nameless the unpleasant
necessity of relinquishing the house and the income which you have just
settled on her. She certainly would not then venerate your memory."
"What is that?"
"The transaction which you carried through was based on a felony and
could not be upheld. The firm you dealt with will go to the courts, and
the money, being directly traceable, will be held forfeit as no good
consideration passed."
"Max!" cried Mr Carlyle hotly, "you are not going to let this scoundrel
cheat the gallows after all?"
"The best use you can make of the gallows is to cheat it, Louis,"
replied Carrados. "Have you ever reflected what human beings will think
of us a hundred years hence?"
"Oh, of course I'm not really in favour of hanging," admitted Mr
Carlyle.
"Nobody really is. But we go on hanging. Mr Drishna is a dangerous
animal who for the sake of pacific animals must cease to exist. Let his
barbarous exploit pass into oblivion with him. The disadvantages of
spreading it broadcast immeasurably outweigh the benefits."
"I have considered," announced Drishna. "I will do as you wish."
"Very well," said Carrados. "Here is some plain notepaper. You had
better write a letter to someone saying that the financial difficulties
in which you are involved make life unbearable."
"But there are no financial difficulties--now."
"That does not matter in the least. It will be put down to an
hallucination and taken as showing the state of your mind."
"But what guarantee have we that he will not escape?" whispered Mr
Carlyle.
"He cannot escape," replied Carrados tranquilly. "His identity is too
clear."
"I have no intention of trying to escape," put in Drishna, as he wrote.
"You hardly imagine that I have not considered this eventuality, do
you?"
"All the same," murmured the ex-lawyer, "I should like to have a jury
behind me. It is one thing to execute a man morally; it is another to do
it almost literally."
"Is that all right?" asked Drishna, passing across the letter he had
written.
Carrados smiled at this tribute to his perception.
"Quite excellent," he replied courteously. "There is a train at
nine-forty. Will that suit you?"
Drishna nodded and stood up. Mr Carlyle had a very uneasy feeling that
he ought to do something but could not suggest to himself what.
The next moment he heard his friend heartily thanking the visitor for
the assistance he had been in the matter of the Indo-Scythian
inscription, as they walked across the hall together. Then a door
closed.
"I believe that there is something positively uncanny about Max at
times," murmured the perturbed gentleman to himself.
THE TRAGEDY AT BROOKBEND COTTAGE
"Max," said Mr Carlyle, when Parkinson had closed the door behind him,
"this is Lieutenant Hollyer, whom you consented to see."
"To hear," corrected Carrados, smiling straight into the healthy and
rather embarrassed face of the stranger before him. "Mr Hollyer knows of
my disability?"
"Mr Carlyle told me," said the young man, "but, as a matter of fact, I
had heard of you before, Mr Carrados, from one of our men. It was in
connexion with the foundering of the _Ivan Saratov_."
Carrados wagged his head in good-humoured resignation.
"And the owners were sworn to inviolable secrecy!" he exclaimed. "Well,
it is inevitable, I suppose. Not another scuttling case, Mr Hollyer?"
"No, mine is quite a private matter," replied the lieutenant. "My
sister, Mrs Creake--but Mr Carlyle would tell you better than I can. He
knows all about it."
"No, no; Carlyle is a professional. Let me have it in the rough, Mr
Hollyer. My ears are my eyes, you know."
"Very well, sir. I can tell you what there is to tell, right enough, but
I feel that when all's said and done it must sound very little to
another, although it seems important enough to me."
"We have occasionally found trifles of significance ourselves," said
Carrados encouragingly. "Don't let that deter you."
This was the essence of Lieutenant Hollyer's narrative:
"I have a sister, Millicent, who is married to a man called Creake. She
is about twenty-eight now and he is at least fifteen years older.
Neither my mother (who has since died), nor I, cared very much about
Creake. We had nothing particular against him, except, perhaps, the
moderate disparity of age, but none of us appeared to have anything in
common. He was a dark, taciturn man, and his moody silence froze up
conversation. As a result, of course, we didn't see much of each other."
"This, you must understand, was four or five years ago, Max," interposed
Mr Carlyle officiously.
Carrados maintained an uncompromising silence. Mr Carlyle blew his nose
and contrived to impart a hurt significance into the operation. Then
Lieutenant Hollyer continued:
"Millicent married Creake after a very short engagement. It was a
frightfully subdued wedding--more like a funeral to me. The man
professed to have no relations and apparently he had scarcely any
friends or business acquaintances. He was an agent for something or
other and had an office off Holborn. I suppose he made a living out of
it then, although we knew practically nothing of his private affairs,
but I gather that it has been going down since, and I suspect that for
the past few years they have been getting along almost entirely on
Millicent's little income. You would like the particulars of that?"
"Please," assented Carrados.
"When our father died about seven years ago, he left three thousand
pounds. It was invested in Canadian stock and brought in a little over a
hundred a year. By his will my mother was to have the income of that for
life and on her death it was to pass to Millicent, subject to the
payment of a lump sum of five hundred pounds to me. But my father
privately suggested to me that if I should have no particular use for
the money at the time, he would propose my letting Millicent have the
income of it until I did want it, as she would not be particularly well
off. You see, Mr Carrados, a great deal more had been spent on my
education and advancement than on her; I had my pay, and, of course, I
could look out for myself better than a girl could."
"Quite so," agreed Carrados.
"Therefore I did nothing about that," continued the lieutenant. "Three
years ago I was over again but I did not see much of them. They were
living in lodgings. That was the only time since the marriage that I
have seen them until last week. In the meanwhile our mother had died and
Millicent had been receiving her income. She wrote me several letters
at the time. Otherwise we did not correspond much, but about a year ago
she sent me their new address--Brookbend Cottage, Mulling Common--a
house that they had taken. When I got two months' leave I invited myself
there as a matter of course, fully expecting to stay most of my time
with them, but I made an excuse to get away after a week. The place was
dismal and unendurable, the whole life and atmosphere indescribably
depressing." He looked round with an instinct of caution, leaned forward
earnestly, and dropped his voice. "Mr Carrados, it is my absolute
conviction that Creake is only waiting for a favourable opportunity to
murder Millicent."
"Go on," said Carrados quietly. "A week of the depressing surroundings
of Brookbend Cottage would not alone convince you of that, Mr Hollyer."
"I am not so sure," declared Hollyer doubtfully. "There was a feeling of
suspicion and--before me--polite hatred that would have gone a good way
towards it. All the same there _was_ something more definite. Millicent
told me this the day after I went there. There is no doubt that a few
months ago Creake deliberately planned to poison her with some
weed-killer. She told me the circumstances in a rather distressed
moment, but afterwards she refused to speak of it again--even weakly
denied it--and, as a matter of fact, it was with the greatest difficulty
that I could get her at any time to talk about her husband or his
affairs. The gist of it was that she had the strongest suspicion that
Creake doctored a bottle of stout which he expected she would drink for
her supper when she was alone. The weed-killer, properly labelled, but
also in a beer bottle, was kept with other miscellaneous liquids in the
same cupboard as the beer but on a high shelf. When he found that it had
miscarried he poured away the mixture, washed out the bottle and put in
the dregs from another. There is no doubt in my mind that if he had come
back and found Millicent dead or dying he would have contrived it to
appear that she had made a mistake in the dark and drunk some of the
poison before she found out."
"Yes," assented Carrados. "The open way; the safe way."
"You must understand that they live in a very small style, Mr Carrados,
and Millicent is almost entirely in the man's power. The only servant
they have is a woman who comes in for a few hours every day. The house
is lonely and secluded. Creake is sometimes away for days and nights at
a time, and Millicent, either through pride or indifference, seems to
have dropped off all her old friends and to have made no others. He
might poison her, bury the body in the garden, and be a thousand miles
away before anyone began even to inquire about her. What am I to do, Mr
Carrados?"
"He is less likely to try poison than some other means now," pondered
Carrados. "That having failed, his wife will always be on her guard. He
may know, or at least suspect, that others know. No.... The
common-sense precaution would be for your sister to leave the man, Mr
Hollyer. She will not?"
"No," admitted Hollyer, "she will not. I at once urged that." The young
man struggled with some hesitation for a moment and then blurted out:
"The fact is, Mr Carrados, I don't understand Millicent. She is not the
girl she was. She hates Creake and treats him with a silent contempt
that eats into their lives like acid, and yet she is so jealous of him
that she will let nothing short of death part them. It is a horrible
life they lead. I stood it for a week and I must say, much as I dislike
my brother-in-law, that he has something to put up with. If only he got
into a passion like a man and killed her it wouldn't be altogether
incomprehensible."
"That does not concern us," said Carrados. "In a game of this kind one
has to take sides and we have taken ours. It remains for us to see that
our side wins. You mentioned jealousy, Mr Hollyer. Have you any idea
whether Mrs Creake has real ground for it?"
"I should have told you that," replied Lieutenant Hollyer. "I happened
to strike up with a newspaper man whose office is in the same block as
Creake's. When I mentioned the name he grinned. 'Creake,' he said, 'oh,
he's the man with the romantic typist, isn't he?' 'Well, he's my
brother-in-law,' I replied. 'What about the typist?' Then the chap shut
up like a knife. 'No, no,' he said, 'I didn't know he was married. I
don't want to get mixed up in anything of that sort. I only said that
he had a typist. Well, what of that? So have we; so has everyone.' There
was nothing more to be got out of him, but the remark and the grin
meant--well, about as usual, Mr Carrados."
Carrados turned to his friend.
"I suppose you know all about the typist by now, Louis?"
"We have had her under efficient observation, Max," replied Mr Carlyle,
with severe dignity.
"Is she unmarried?"
"Yes; so far as ordinary repute goes, she is."
"That is all that is essential for the moment. Mr Hollyer opens up three
excellent reasons why this man might wish to dispose of his wife. If we
accept the suggestion of poisoning--though we have only a jealous
woman's suspicion for it--we add to the wish the determination. Well, we
will go forward on that. Have you got a photograph of Mr Creake?"
The lieutenant took out his pocket-book.
"Mr Carlyle asked me for one. Here is the best I could get."
Carrados rang the bell.
"This, Parkinson," he said, when the man appeared, "is a photograph of a
Mr----What first name, by the way?"
"Austin," put in Hollyer, who was following everything with a boyish
mixture of excitement and subdued importance.
"--of a Mr Austin Creake. I may require you to recognize him."
Parkinson glanced at the print and returned it to his master's hand.
"May I inquire if it is a recent photograph of the gentleman, sir?" he
asked.
"About six years ago," said the lieutenant, taking in this new actor in
the drama with frank curiosity. "But he is very little changed."
"Thank you, sir. I will endeavour to remember Mr Creake, sir."
Lieutenant Hollyer stood up as Parkinson left the room. The interview
seemed to be at an end.
"Oh, there's one other matter," he remarked. "I am afraid that I did
rather an unfortunate thing while I was at Brookbend. It seemed to me
that as all Millicent's money would probably pass into Creake's hands
sooner or later I might as well have my five hundred pounds, if only to
help her with afterwards. So I broached the subject and said that I
should like to have it now as I had an opportunity for investing."
"And you think?"
"It may possibly influence Creake to act sooner than he otherwise might
have done. He may have got possession of the principal even and find it
very awkward to replace it."
"So much the better. If your sister is going to be murdered it may as
well be done next week as next year so far as I am concerned. Excuse my
brutality, Mr Hollyer, but this is simply a case to me and I regard it
strategically. Now Mr Carlyle's organization can look after Mrs Creake
for a few weeks but it cannot look after her for ever. By increasing the
immediate risk we diminish the permanent risk."
"I see," agreed Hollyer. "I'm awfully uneasy but I'm entirely in your
hands."
"Then we will give Mr Creake every inducement and every opportunity to
get to work. Where are you staying now?"
"Just now with some friends at St Albans."
"That is too far." The inscrutable eyes retained their tranquil depth
but a new quality of quickening interest in the voice made Mr Carlyle
forget the weight and burden of his ruffled dignity. "Give me a few
minutes, please. The cigarettes are behind you, Mr Hollyer." The blind
man walked to the window and seemed to look out over the cypress-shaded
lawn. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and Mr Carlyle picked up _Punch_.
Then Carrados turned round again.
"You are prepared to put your own arrangements aside?" he demanded of
his visitor.
"Certainly."
"Very well. I want you to go down now--straight from here--to Brookbend
Cottage. Tell your sister that your leave is unexpectedly cut short and
that you sail to-morrow."
"The _Martian_?"
"No, no; the _Martian_ doesn't sail. Look up the movements on your way
there and pick out a boat that does. Say you are transferred. Add that
you expect to be away only two or three months and that you really want
the five hundred pounds by the time of your return. Don't stay in the
house long, please."
"I understand, sir."
"St Albans is too far. Make your excuse and get away from there to-day.
Put up somewhere in town, where you will be in reach of the telephone.
Let Mr Carlyle and myself know where you are. Keep out of Creake's way.
I don't want actually to tie you down to the house, but we may require
your services. We will let you know at the first sign of anything doing
and if there is nothing to be done we must release you."
"I don't mind that. Is there nothing more that I can do now?"